In the autumn of 2011, the student organisation at the Civil and Environmental Engineering department of NTNU invited the architecture students to a design competition for a new student cabin. A year and a half later, after 10 000 hours of communal labour involving 150 students, the cabin was finished.
Shared cabins provide an antidote to the increasingly luxurious holiday homes that are being built for private clients. They are in frequent use by a lot of people, who can participate at a modest cost. This cabin is not accessible by private car, and has no water or electricity, but sleeps 30 people and is shared by about 1000 students.
As in all buildings for collective living, the relationships between private and public zones have to be clearly defined. The plan is a simple linear structure, where the smaller rooms stay connected to the big shared living room. The sloping section allows for bedspaces on a mezzanine.